Raspberry Pi wins UK's top engineering award

The team that created the credit card-sized computer Raspberry Pi was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering's MacRobert Prize at an event in London on 29 June. First presented in 1969, the MacRobert award is UK's most prestigious national prize for engineering innovation.

The small single-board computer, which was launched in 2012, beat other finalists in the competition such as cybersecurity company Darktrace and radiotherapy pioneers Vision RT.

One of the judges, Dr Frances Saunders, said a small engineering team had redefined home computing.

Saunders told BBC, "The Raspberry Pi team has achieved something that mainstream multinational computer companies and leading processing chip designers not only failed to do, but failed even to spot a need for."

The previous recipients of the innovation award include the creators of the CT scanner, the designers of the Severn Bridge, and the team and Microsoft in Cambridge that developed the Kinect motion sensor.

The Raspberry Pi is the best selling British computer and has become quite popular in the industry; starting from robotics to smart signage systems, which accounts for about half of all Raspberry Pi sales.

Eben Upton, the co-founder and former trustee of Raspberry Pi Foundation told BBC his organisation has an advantage over new entrants. "We still see it as a toy - it just happens to be a toy that's rather well made," he said.

Education has remained Raspberry Pi's main mission. The organisation also recently merged with CoderDojo, a programming community.